The Book of Mormon is one of the four standard works of the
LDS church. According to official Mormon history, the book was
translated, with Divine help, from a set of golden plates found
by Joseph Smith, a New York farmboy who lived in the early part
of the nineteenth century.

The Book deals with the ancient history of the American
continent, and proposes that the Native Americans are descendants
of a small band of Jews, who left Palestine at about the same
time that the Babylonians conquered Judah.

While Mormon doctrine holds that the Book is a real
translation of an unknown language, a close examination of the
text itself reveals otherwise. It is evident that Joseph Smith
was inspired by a number of contemporary sources, which, together
with his own fertile imagination, resulted in the Book of Mormon.

The original book of Mormon was published in 1830. Another
edition was released a few years later. Strangely, however, the
original text had undergone some significant changes in the
intervening years. Here is the original text of the Book of
Mormon.

The Book of Commandments was a collection of Divine
revelations given to Joseph Smith. The book was reprinted some
years later under the title 'Doctrine and Covenants', again with
some significant changes. Here is the original Book of
Commandments, with some changes noted.

Although not a part of the Book of Mormon, the
Book of Abraham has a bearing on the translation of the Book of
Mormon. In 1835, Joseph Smith acquired a collection of papyrus
fragments from a travelling Egyptian show. He claimed to be able
to translate these fragments, and the Book of Abraham is the
result. Following the Prophet's death, the papyri were thought
lost, until they turned up again in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in 1967. A retranslation of the papyri reveals that they are
not connected to Abraham in any way at all. Since then, LDS
apologists have been fighting a rearguard action to try to
preserve Joseph Smith's status as a translator. This section will
try to show that the papyri are indeed connected to the Book of
Abraham, at least in the mind of Joseph Smith.

Although Joseph Smith claimed that the Book of Abraham was
translated from an Egyptian papyrus, critics have long noticed
that there is very little that can be called Egyptian in the Book
of Abraham, but a lot that can be traced to a knowledge of
Hebrew. Might this have something to do with the fact that Smith
was studying Hebrew at the time that he came into possession of
the papyri?

The Reorganized LDS (RLDS)
church, a branch of the Mormon church that split off soon after
Joseph's death, have a different perspective on the Book of
Abraham. They were wise enough to know that the historicity of
the book could not be defended, and relegated it to the category
of "inspired fiction". (This article should not be
considered to be the official RLDS position. It is, however, the
opinion of an RLDS church member).

It has often been noted that the point of
apologetics appears to be to reassure the faithful, not to
persuade the unbeliever. Mormon apologetics is no exception. This
section takes a look at some of the common 'proofs' that are put
forward for the Book of Mormon by Church apologists.